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Purpose Built Emmerdale Village Set at Harewood, Yorkshire
As many of us Emmerdale fans know the village is filmed on a purpose built set on the Harewood Estate near Leeds in Yorkshire and has done since January 1998. It is a life size replica of Esholt, the village which had been used for the village scenes in Emmerdale Farm/Emmerdale for 22 years. It took a year or so planning before construction began on the new village. As early as 1989 the shows set designer Mike Long had visions of building a purpose built set but the tourism problem in Esholt was not bad enough to disrupt filming to a big degree. By the mid 1990s filming got more hectic due to the decision to screen 3 episodes a week instead of 2. This meant more filming in Esholt. In late 1995 Mike Long submitted plans for a purpose built set. Costs were formalised in 1996. Mike was told by producer Mervyn Watson to make the new set look more like a Dales village in terms of stonework and such but was told to keep the shape, size and geography of the shop, the Woolpack, Pear Tree, Keepers and Victoria Cottages the same as Esholt. A site was chosen which was a huge cornfield on the Harewood Estate near leeds, which conveniently was the field near the two farmhouses that were used for filming exterior scenes of the Dingles farm and Glovers farm. They had free reign with pretty much everywhere else outside Main Street. They copied the entire row of 4 houses next to the pub and the 4 running along from the adjoined post office. They were the same as Esholt and the cottage behind the shop which is at an angle fronting the corner of Main Street and the main road. They copied the shape of the buildings used as the tea rooms, smithy, Annies Cottage and the village hall but placed them differently to Esholt. Church Lane in the new village was to be where the second row of houses along from the one adjoined to the shop was to be. Due to costs the church and vicarage was not recreated. Construction began in June 1997 and was finished by December. The production team went off for Christmas feeling really proud of their achievement. In December 1997 after 22 years the cast and crew bade farewell to Esholt as the curtain came down on the village being used for the village scenes in favour for the replica village on the Harewood Estate. Regarding the stonework, Esholt is not a Dales village and Arncliffe was so when they were in talks of building a new village set they were to use the correct stonework to make the replica of Esholt look like a Dales village. Esholt's buildings are coursed sandstone whereas Dales villages are built out of rubble style limestone which is not in courses. In Esholt there are stone lintels around the windows and you find them in Dales villages so they were kept but most corners of Dales villages have large stone called quoins. They did very good in recreating Esholt in terms of shape, size, geography and outlines of doors and windows (Ie lintels) but changed the stonework to make it look more Dales like. They spread yoghurt over the stonework to encourage algae and moss to grow on parts of the walls them to make them look 300 years old, and in time the stonework matches Esholt more in terms of colour. Mike Long toured a few real Dales villages to get ideas on how to recreate the stonework effect in the new village. Category:Emmerdale filming locations.